the soviet thermidor
1. why stalin triumphed
the historians of the soviet union cannot fail to conclude that the policy of the ruling bureaucracy upon great questions has been a series of contradictory zigzags. the attempt to explain or justify them “by changing circumstances” obviously won’t hold water. to guide means at least in some degree to exercise foresight. the stalin faction have not in the slightest degree foreseen the inevitable results of the development; they have been caught napping every time. they have reacted with mere administrative reflexes. the theory of each successive turn has been created after the fact, and with small regard for what they were teaching yesterday. on the basis of the same irrefutable facts and documents, the historian will be compelled to conclude that the so-called “left opposition” offered an immeasurably more correct analysis of the processes taking place in the country, and far more truly foresaw their further development.
this assertion is contradicted at first glance by the simple fact that the fiction which could not see ahead was steadily victorious, while the more penetrating group suffered defeat after defeat. that kind of objection, which comes automatically to mind, is convincing, however, only for those who think rationalistically, and see in politics a logical argument or a chess match. a political struggle is in its essence a struggle of interests and forces, not of arguments. the quality of the leadership is, of course, far from a matter of indifference for the outcome of the conflict, but it is not the only factor, and in the last analysis is not decisive. each of the struggling camps moreover demands leaders in its own image.
the february revolution raised kerensky and tsereteli to power, not because they were “cleverer” or “more astute” than the ruling tzarist clique, but because they represented, at least temporarily, the revolutionary masses of the people in their revolt against the old regime. kerensky was able to drive lenin underground and imprison other bolshevik leaders, not because he excelled them in personal qualifications, but because the majority of the workers and soldiers in those days were still following the patriotic petty bourgeoisie. the personal “superiority” of kerensky, if it is suitable to employ such a word in this connection, consisted in the fact that he did not see farther than the overwhelming majority. the bolsheviks in their turn conquered the petty bourgeois democrats, not through the personal superiority of their leaders, but through a new correlation of social forces. the proletariat had succeeded at last in leading the discontented peasantry against the bourgeoisie.
the consecutive stages of the great french revolution, during its rise and fall alike, demonstrate no less convincingly that the strength of the “leaders” and “heroes” that replaced each other consisted primarily in their correspondence to the character of those classes and strata which supported them. only this correspondence, and not any irrelevant superiorities whatever, permitted each of them to place the impress of his personality upon a certain historic period. in the successive supremacy of mirabeau, brissot, robespierre, barras and bonaparte, there is an obedience to objective law incomparably more effective than the special traits of the historic protagonists themselves.
it is sufficiently well known that every revolution up to this time has been followed by a reaction, or even a counterrevolution. this, to be sure, has never thrown the nation all the way back to its starting point, but it has always taken from the people the lion’s share of their conquests. the victims of the first revolutionary wave have been, as a general rule, those pioneers, initiators, and instigators who stood at the head of the masses in the period of the revolutionary offensive. in their stead people of the second line, in league with the former enemies of the revolution, have been advanced to the front. beneath this dramatic duel of “coryphées” on the open political scene, shifts have taken place in the relations between classes, and, no less important, profound changes in the psychology of the recently revolutionary masses.
answering the bewildered questions of many comrades as to what has become of the activity of the bolshevik party and the working class – where is its revolutionary initiative, its spirit of self-sacrifice and plebian pride – why, in place of all this, has appeared so much vileness, cowardice, pusillanimity and careerism – rakovsky referred to the life story of the french revolution of the 18th century, and offered the example of babuef, who on emerging from the abbaye prison likewise wondered what had become of the heroic people of the parisian suburbs. a revolution of the heroic people of the parisian suburbs. a revolution is a mighty devourer of human energy, both individual and collective. the nerves give way. consciousness is shaken and characters are worn out. events unfold too swiftly for the flow of fresh forces to replace the loss. hunger, unemployment, the death of the revolutionary cadres, the removal of the masses from administration, all this led to such a physical and moral impoverishment of the parisian suburbs that they required three decades before they were ready for a new insurrection.
the axiomatic assertions of the soviet literature, to the effect that the laws of bourgeois revolutions are “inapplicable” to a proletarian revolution, have no scientific content whatever. the proletarian character of the october revolution was determined by the world situation and by a special correlation of internal forces. but the classes themselves were formed in the barbarous circumstances of tzarism and backward capitalism, and were anything but made to order for the demands of a socialist revolution. the exact opposite is true. it is for the very reason that a proletariat still backward in many respects achieved in the space of a few months the unprecedented leap from a semi-feudal monarchy to a socialist dictatorship, that the reaction in its ranks was inevitable. this reaction has developed in a series of consecutive waves. external conditions and events have vied with each other in nourishing it. intervention followed intervention. the revolution got no direct help from the west. instead of the expected prosperity of the country an ominous destitution reigned for long. moreover, the outstanding representatives of the working class either died in the civil war, or rose a few steps higher and broke away from the masses. and thus after an unexampled tension of forces, hopes and illusions, there came a long period of weariness, decline and sheer disappointment in the results of the revolution. the ebb of the “plebian pride” made room for a flood of pusillanimity and careerism. the new commanding caste rose to its place upon this wave.
the demobilization of the red army of five million played no small role in the formation of the bureaucracy. the victorious commanders assumed leading posts in the local soviets, in economy, in education, and they persistently introduced everywhere that regime which had ensured success in the civil war. thus on all sides the masses were pushed away gradually from actual participation in the leadership of the country.
the reaction within the proletariat caused an extraordinary flush of hope and confidence in the petty bourgeois strata of town and country, aroused as they were to new life by the nep, and growing bolder and bolder. the young bureaucracy, which had arisen at first as an agent of the proletariat, began ow to feel itself a court of arbitration between classes. its independence increased from mouth to mouth.
the international situation was pushing with mighty forces in the same direction. the soviet bureaucracy became more self-confident, the heavier blows dealt to the working class. between these two facts there was not only a chronological, but a causal connection, and one which worked in two directions. the leaders of the bureaucracy promoted the proletarian defeats; the defeats promoted the rise of the bureaucracy. the crushing of the bulgarian insurrection in 1924, the treacherous liquidation of the general strike in england and the unworthy conduct of the polish workers’ party at the installation of pilsudski in 1926, the terrible massacre of the chinese revolution in 1927, and, finally, the still more ominous recent defeats in germany and austria – these are the historic catastrophes which killed the faith of the soviet masses in world revolution, and permitted the bureaucracy to rise higher and higher as the sole light of salvation.
as to the causes of the defeat of the world proletariat during the last thirteen years, the author must refer to his other works, where he has tried to expose the ruinous part played by the leadership in the kremlin, isolated from the masses and profoundly conservative as it is, in the revolutionary movement of all countries. here we are concerned primarily with the irrefutable and instructive fact that the continual defeats of the revolution in europe and asia, while weakening the international position of the soviet union, have vastly strengthened the soviet bureaucracy. two dates are especially significant in this historic series. in the second half of 1923, the attention of the soviet workers was passionately fixed upon germany, where the proletariat, it seemed, had stretched out its hand to power. the panicky retreat of the german communist party was the heaviest possible disappointment to the working masses of the soviet union. the soviet bureaucracy straightway opened a campaign against the theory of “permanent revolution”, and dealt the left opposition its first cruel blow. during the years 1926 and 1927 the population of the soviet union experienced a new tide of hope. all eyes were now directed to the east where the drama of the chinese revolution was unfolding. the left opposition had recovered from the previous blows and was recruiting a phalanx of new adherents. at the end of 1927 the chinese revolution was massacred by the hangman, chiang kai-shek, into whose hands the communist international had literally betrayed the chinese workers and peasants. a cold wave of disappointment swept over the masses of the soviet union. after an unbridled baiting in the press and at meetings, the bureaucracy finally, in 1928, ventured upon mass arrests among the left opposition.
to be sure, tens of thousands of revolutionary fighters gathered around the banner of the bolshevik-leninists. the advanced workers were indubitably sympathetic to the opposition, but that sympathy remained passive. the masses lacked faith that the situation could be seriously changed by a new struggle. meantime the bureaucracy asserted:
“for the sake of an international revolution, the opposition proposes to drag us into a revolutionary war. enough of shake-ups! we have earned the right to rest. we will build the socialist society at home. rely upon us, your leaders!”
this gospel of repose firmly consolidated the apparatchiki and the military and state officials and indubitably found an echo among the weary workers, and still more the peasant masses. can it be, they asked themselves, that the opposition is actually ready to sacrifice the interests of the soviet union for the idea of “permanent revolution”? in reality, the struggle had been about the life interests of the soviet state. the false policy of the international in germany resulted ten years later in the victory of hitler – that is, in a threatening war danger from the west. and the no less false policy in china reinforced japanese imperialism and brought very much nearer the danger in the east. but periods of reaction are characterized above all by a lack of courageous thinking.
the opposition was isolated. the bureaucracy struck while the iron was hot, exploiting the bewilderment and passivity of the workers, setting their more backward strata against the advanced, and relying more and more boldly upon the kulak and the petty bourgeois ally in general. in the course of a few years, the bureaucracy thus shattered the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat.
it would be naive to imagine that stalin, previously unknown to the masses, suddenly issued from the wings full armed with a complete strategical plan. no indeed. before he felt out his own course, the bureaucracy felt out stalin himself. he brought it all the necessary guarantees: the prestige of an old bolshevik, a strong character, narrow vision, and close bonds with the political machine as the sole source of his influence. the success which fell upon him was a surprise at first to stalin himself. it was the friendly welcome of the new ruling group, trying to free itself from the old principles and from the control of the masses, and having need of a reliable arbiter in its inner affairs. a secondary figure before the masses and in the events of the revolution, stalin revealed himself as the indubitable leader of the thermidorian bureaucracy, as first in its midst.
the new ruling caste soon revealed soon revealed its own ideas, feelings and, more important, its interests. the overwhelming majority of the older generation of the present bureaucracy had stood on the other side of the barricades during the october revolution. (take, for example, the soviet ambassadors only: troyanovsky, maisky, potemkin, suritz, khinchuk, etc.) or at best they had stood aside from the struggle. those of the present bureaucrats who were in the bolshevik camp in the october dys played in the majority of cases no considerable role. as for the young bureaucrats, they have been chosen and educated by the elders, frequently from among their own offspring. these people could not have achieved the october revolution, but they were perfectly suited to exploit it.
personal incidents in the interval between these two historic chapters were not, of course, without influence. thus the sickness and death of lenin undoubtedly hastened the denouement. had lenin lived longer, the pressure of the bureaucratic power would have developed, at least during the first years, more slowly. but as early as 1926 krupskaya said, of left oppositionists: “if ilych were alive, he would probably already be in prison.” the fears and alarming prophecies of lenin himself were then still fresh in her memory, and she cherished no illusions as to his personal omnipotence against opposing historic winds and currents.
the bureaucracy conquered something more than the left opposition. it conquered the bolshevik party. it defeated the program of lenin, who had seen the chief danger in the conversion of the organs of the state “from servants of society to lords over society.” it defeated all these enemies, the opposition, the party and lenin, not with ideas and arguments, but with its own social weight. the leaden rump of bureaucracy outweighed the head of the revolution. that is the secret of the soviet’s thermidor.
2. the degeneration of the bolshevik party
the bolshevik party prepared and insured the october victory. it also created the soviet state, supplying it with a sturdy skeleton. the degeneration of the party became both cause and consequence of the bureaucratization of the state. it is necessary to show at at least briefly how this happened.
the inner regime of the bolshevik party was characterized by the method of democratic centralism. the combination of these two concepts, democracy and centralism, is not in the least contradictory. the party took watchful care not only that its boundaries should always be strictly defined, but also that all those who entered these boundaries should enjoy the actual right to define the direction of the party policy. freedom of criticism and intellectual struggle was an irrevocable content of the party democracy. the present doctrine that bolshevism does not tolerate factions is a myth of epoch decline. in reality the history of bolshevism is a history of the struggle of factions. and, indeed, how could a genuinely revolutionary organization, setting itself the task of overthrowing the world and uniting under its banner the most audacious iconoclasts, fighters and insurgents, live and develop without intellectual conflicts, without groupings and temporary factional formations? the farsightedness of the bolshevik leadership often made it possible to soften conflicts and shorten the duration of factional struggle, but no more than that. the central committee relied upon this seething democratic support. from this it derived the audacity to make decisions and give orders. the obvious correctness of the leadership at all critical stages gave it that high authority which is the priceless moral capital of centralism.
the regime of the bolshevik party, especially before it came to power, stood thus in complete contradiction to the regime of the present sections of the communist international, with their “leaders” appointed from above, making complete changes of policy at a word of command, with their uncontrolled apparatus, haughty in its attitude to the rank and file, servile in its attitude to the kremlin. but in the first years after the conquest of power also, even when the administrative rust was already visible on the party, every bolshevik, not excluding stalin, would have denounced as a malicious slanderer anyone who should have shown him on a screen the image of the party ten or fifteen years later.
the very center of lenin’s attention and that of his colleagues was occupied by a continual concern to protect the bolshevik ranks from the vices of those in power. however, the extraordinary closeness and at times actual merging of the party with the state apparatus had already in those first years done indubitable harm to the freedom and elasticity of the party regime. democracy had been narrowed in proportion as difficulties increased. in the beginning, the party had wished and hoped to preserve freedom of political struggle within the framework of the soviets. the civil war introduced stern amendments into this calculation. the opposition parties were forbidden one after the other. this measure, obviously in conflict with the spirit of soviet democracy, the leaders of bolshevism regarded not as a principle, but as an episodic act of self-defense.
the swift growth of the ruling party, with the novelty and immensity of its tasks, inevitably gave rise to inner disagreements. the underground oppositional currents in the country exerted a pressure through various channels upon the sole legal political organization, increasing the acuteness of the factional struggle. at the moment of completion of the civil war, this struggle took such sharp forms as to threaten to unsettle the state power. in march 1921, in the days of the kronstadt revolt, which attracted into its ranks no small number of bolsheviks, the 10th congress of the party thought it necessary to resort to a prohibition of factions – that is, to transfer the political regime prevailing in the state to the inner life of the ruling party. this forbidding of factions was again regarded as an exceptional measure to be abandoned at the first serious improvement in the situation. at the same time, the central committee was extremely cautious in applying the new law, concerning itself most of all lest it lead to a strangling of the inner life of the party.
however, what was in its original design merely a necessary concession to a difficult situation, proved perfectly suited to the taste of the bureaucracy, which had then begun to approach the inner life of the party exclusively from the viewpoint of convenience in administration. already in 1922, during a brief improvement in his health, lenin, horrified at the threatening growth of bureaucratism, was preparing a struggle against the faction of stalin, which had made itself the axis of the party machine as a first step toward capturing the machinery of state. a second stroke and then death prevented him from measuring forces with this internal reaction.
the entire effort of stalin, with whom at that time zinoviev and kamenev were working hand in hand, was thenceforth directed to freeing the party machine from the control of the rank-and-file members of the party. in this struggle for “stability” of the central committee, stalin proved the most consistent and reliable among his colleagues. he had no need to tear himself away from international problems; he had never been concerned with them. the petty bourgeois outlook of the new ruling stratum was his own outlook. he profoundly believed that the task of creating socialism was national and administrative in its nature. he looked upon the communist international as a necessary evil would should be used so far as possible for the purposes of foreign policy. his own party kept a value in his eyes merely as a submissive support for the machine.
together with the theory of socialism in one country, there was put into circulation by the bureaucracy a theory that in bolshevism the central committee is everything and the party nothing. this second theory was in any case realized with more success than the first. availing itself of the death of lenin, the ruling group announced a “leninist levy.” the gates of the party, always carefully guarded, were now thrown wide open. workers, clerks, petty officials, flocked through in crowds. the political aim of this maneuver was to dissolve the revolutionary vanguard in raw human material, without experience, without independence, and yet with the old habit of submitting to the authorities. the scheme was successful. by freeing the bureaucracy from the control of the proletarian vanguard, the “leninist levy” dealt a death blow to the party of lenin. the machine had won the necessary independence. democratic centralism gave place to bureaucratic centralism. in the party apparatus itself there now took place a radical reshuffling of personnel from top to bottom. the chief merit of a bolshevik was declared to be obedience. under the guise of a struggle with the opposition, there occurred a sweeping replacement of revolutionists with chinovniks. 1 the history of the bolshevik party became a history of its rapid degeneration.
1. professional governmental functionaries.
the political meaning of the developing struggle was darkened for many by the circumstances that the leaders of all three groupings, left, center and right, belonged to one and the same staff in the kremlin, the politburo. to superficial minds it seemed to be a mere matter of personal rivalry, a struggle for the “heritage” of lenin. but in the conditions of iron dictatorship social antagonisms could not show themselves at first except through the institutions of the ruling party. many thermidorians emerged in their day from the circle of the jacobins. bonaparte himself belonged to that circle in his early years, and subsequently it was from among former jacobins that the first consul and emperor of france selected his most faithful servants. times change and the jacobins with them, not excluding the jacobins of the twentieth century.
of the politburo of lenin’s epoch there now remains only stalin. two of its members, zinoviev and kamenev, collaborators of lenin throughout many years as émigrés, are enduring ten-year prison terms for a crime which they did not commit. three other members, rykov, bukharin and tomsky, are completely removed from the leadership, but as a reward for submission occupy secondary posts. 2
2. translator’s note – zinoviev and kamenev were executed in august 1936 for alleged complicity in a “terrible plot” against stalin; tomsky committed suicide or was shot in connection with the same case; rykov was removed from his post in connection with the plot; bukharin, although suspected, is still at liberty.
and, finally, the author of these lines is in exile. the widow of lenin, krupskaya, is also under the ban, having proved unable with all her efforts to adjust herself completely to the thermidor.
the members of the present politburo occupied secondary posts throughout the history of the bolshevik party. if anybody in the first years of the revolution had predicted their future elevation, they would have been the first in surprise, and there would have been no false modesty in their surprise. for this very reason, the rule is more stern at present that the politburo is always right, and in any case that no man can be right against stalin, who is unable to make mistakes and consequently cannot be right against himself.
demands for party democracy were through all this time the slogans of all the oppositional groups, as insistent as they were hopeless. the above-mentioned platform of the left opposition demanded in 1927 that a special law be written into the criminal code “punishing as a serious state crime every direct or indirect persecution of a worker for criticism.” instead of this, there was introduced into the criminal code an article against the left opposition itself.
of party democracy there remained only recollections in the memory of the older generation. and together with it had disappeared the democracy of the soviets, the trade unions, the co-operatives, the cultural and athletic organizations. above each and every one of them there reigns an unlimited hierarchy of party secretaries. the regime had become “totalitarian” in character several years before this word arrived from germany.
“by means of demoralizing methods, which convert thinking communists into machines, destroying will, character and human dignity,” wrote rakovsky in 1928, “the ruling circles have succeeded in converting themselves into an unremovable and inviolate oligarchy, which replaces the class and the party.”
since these indignant lines were written,the degeneration of the regime has gone immeasurably farther. the gpu has become the decisive factor in the inner life of the party. if molotov in march 1936 was able to boast to a french journalist that the ruling party no longer contains any factional struggle, it is only because disagreements are now settled by the automatic intervention of the political police. the old bolshevik party is dead and no force will resurrect it.
parallel with the political degeneration of the party, there occurred a moral decay of the uncontrolled apparatus. the word “sovbour” – soviet bourgeois – as applied to a privileged dignitary appeared very early in the workers’ vocabulary. with the transfer to the nep bourgeois tendencies received a more copious field of action. at the 11th congress of the party, in march 1922, lenin gave warning of the danger of a degeneration of the ruling stratum. it has occurred more than once in history, he said, that the conqueror took over the culture of the conquered, when the latter stood on a higher level. the culture of the russian bourgeoisie and the old bureaucracy was, to be sure, miserable, but alas the new ruling stratum must often take off its hat to that culture. “four thousand seven hundred responsible communists” in moscow administer the state machine. “who is leading whom? i doubt very much whether you can say that the communists are in the lead . . . ” in subsequent congresses, lenin could not speak. but all his thoughts in the last months of his active life were of warning and arming the workers against the oppression, caprice and decay of the bureaucracy. he, however, saw only the first symptoms of the disease.
christian rakovsky, former president of the soviet of people’s commissars of the ukraine, and later soviet ambassador in london and paris, sent to his friends in 1928, when already in exile, a brief inquiry into the soviet bureaucracy, which we have quoted above several times, for it still remains the best that has been written on this subject.
“in the mind of lenin, and in all our minds,” says rakovsky, “the task of the party leadership was to protect both the party and the working class from the corrupting action of privilege, place and patronage on the part of those in power, from rapprochement with the relics of the old nobility and burgherdom, from the corrupting influence of the nep, from the temptation of bourgeois morals and ideologies . . . we must say frankly, definitely and loudly that the party apparatus has not fulfilled this task, that it has revealed a complete incapacity for its double role of protector and educator. it has failed. it is bankrupt.”
it is true that rakovsky himself, broken by the bureaucratic repressions, subsequently repudiated his own critical judgments. but the 70-year-old galileo too, caught in the vise of the holy inquisition, found himself compelled to repudiate the system of copernicus – which did not prevent the earth from continuing to revolve around the sun. we do not believe in the recantation of the 60-year-old rakovsky, for he himself has more than once made a withering analysis of such recantations. as to his political criticisms, they have found in the facts of the objective development a far more reliable support than in the subjective stout-heartedness of their author.
the conquest of power changes not only the relations of the proletariat to other classes, but also its own inner structure. the wielding of power becomes the speciality of a definite social group, which is the more impatient to solve its own “social problem”, the higher its opinion of the own mission.
“in a proletarian state, where capitalist accumulation is forbidden to the members of the ruling party, the differentiation is at first functional, but afterward becomes social. i do not say it becomes a class differentiation, but a social one . . . ”
rakovsky further explains:
“the social situation of the communist who has at his disposition an automobile, a good apartment, regular vacations, and receives the party maximum of salary, differs from the situation of the communist who works in the coal mines, where he receives from 50 to 60 rubles a month.”
counting over the causes of the degeneration of the jacobins when in power – the chase after wealth, participation in government contracts, supplies, etc., rakovsky cites a curious remark of babeuf to the effect that the degeneration of the new ruling stratum was helped along not a little by the former young ladies of the aristocracy toward whom the jacobins were very friendly. “what are you doing, small-hearted plebians?” cries babeuf. “today they are embracing you and tomorrow they will strangle you.” a census of the wives of the ruling stratum in the soviet union would show a similar picture. the well-known soviet journalist, sosnovsky, pointed out the special role played by the “automobile-harem factor” in forming the morals of the soviet bureaucracy. it is true that sosnovsky, too, following rakovsky, recanted and was returned from siberia. but that did not improve the morals of the bureaucracy. on the contrary, that very recantation is proof of a progressing demoralization.
the old articles of sosnovsky, passed about in manuscript from hand to hand, were sprinkled with unforgettable episodes from the life of the new ruling stratum, plainly showing to what vast degree the conquerors have assimilated the morals of the conquered. not to return, however, to past years – for sosnovsky finally exchanged his whip for a lyre in 1934 – we will confine ourselves to wholly fresh examples from the soviet press. and we will not select the abuses and co-called “excesses”, either, but everyday phenomena legalized by official social opinion.
the director of a moscow factory, a prominent communist, boasts in pravda of the cultural growth of the enterprise directed by him. “a mechanic telephones: ‘what is your order, sir, check the furnace immediately or wait?’ i answer: ‘wait.’” 3 the mechanic addresses the director with extreme respect, using the second person plural, while the director answers him in the second person singular. and this disgraceful dialogue, impossible in any cultures capitalist country, is related by the director himself on the pages of pravda as something entirely normal! the editor does not object because he does not notice it. the readers do not object because they are accustomed to it. we are also not surprised, for at solemn sessions in the kremlin, the “leaders” and people’s commissars address in the second person singular directors of factories subordinate to them, presidents of collective farms, shop foremen and working women, especially invited to receive decorations. how can they fail to remember that one of the most popular revolutionary slogans in tzarist russia was the demand for the abolition of the use of the second person singular by bosses in addressing their subordinates!
3. translator: it is impossible to convey the flavor of this dialogue in english. the second person singular is used either with intimates in token of affection, or with children, servants and animals in token of superiority.
these kremlin dialogues of the authorities with “the people”, astonishing in their lordly ungraciousness, unmistakably testify that, in spite of the october revolution, the nationalization of the means of production, collectivization, and “the liquidation of the kulaks as a class”, the relations among men, and that at the very heights of the soviet pyramid, have not only not yet risen to socialism, but in many respects are still lagging behind a cultured capitalism. in recent years enormous backward steps have been taken in this very important sphere. and the source of this revival of genuine russian barbarism is indubitably the soviet thermidor, which has given complete independence nd freedom from control to a bureaucracy possessing little culture, and has given to the masses the well-known gospel of obedience and silence.
we are far from intending to contrast the abstraction of dictatorship with the abstraction of democracy, and weight their merits on the scales of pure reason. everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures. the dictatorship of the bolshevik party proved one of the most powerful instruments of progress in history. but here too, in the words of the poet, “reason becomes unreason, kindness a pest.” the prohibition of oppositional parties brought after it the prohibition of factions. the prohibition of factions ended in a prohibition to think otherwise than the infallible leaders. the police-manufactured monolithism of the party resulted in a bureaucratic impunity which has become the sources of all kinds of wantonness and corruption.
3. the social roots of thermidor
we have defined the soviet thermidor as a triumph of the bureaucracy over the masses. we have tried to disclose the historic conditions of this triumph. the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat was in part devoured by the administrative apparatus and gradually demoralized, in part annihilated in the civil war, and in part thrown out and crushed. the tired and disappointed masses were indifferent to what was happening on the summits. these conditions, however, are inadequate to explain why the bureaucracy succeeded in raising itself above society and getting its fate firmly into its own hands. its own will to this would in any case be inadequate; the arising of a new ruling stratum must have deep social causes.
the victory of the thermidorians over the jacobins in the 18th century was also aided by the weariness of the masses and the demoralization of the leading cadres, but beneath these essentially incidental phenomena a deep organic process was taking place. the jacobins rested upon the lower petty bourgeoisie lifted by the great wave. the revolution of the 18th century, however, corresponding to the course of development of the productive forces, could not but bring the great bourgeoisie to political ascendancy in the long run. the thermidor was only one of the stages in this inevitable process. what similar social necessity found expression in the soviet thermidor? we have tried already in one of the preceding chapters to make a preliminary answer to the question why the gendarme triumphed. we must now prolong out analysis of the conditions of the transition from capitalism to socialism, and the role of the state in this process. let us again compare theoretic prophecy with reality.
“it is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and its resistance,” wrote lenin in 1917, speaking of the period which should begin immediately after the conquest of power, “but the organ of suppression here is now the majority of the population, and not the minority as had heretofore always been the case. . . . in that sense the state is beginning to die away.”
in what does this dying away express itself? primarily in the fact that “in place of special institutions of a privileged minority (privileged officials, commanders of a standing army), the majority itself can directly carry out” the functions of suppression. lenin follows this with a statement axiomatic and unanswerable:
“the more universal becomes the very fulfillment of the functions of the state power, the less need is there of this power.”
the annulment of private property in the means of production removes the principal task of the historic state – defense of the proprietary privileges of the minority against the overwhelming majority.
the dying away of the state begins, then, according to lenin, on the very day after the expropriation of the expropriators – that is, before the new regime has had time to take up its economic and cultural problems. every success in the solution of these problems mens a further step in the liquidation of the state, its dissolution in the socialist society. the degree of this dissolution is the best index of the depth and efficacy of the socialist structure. we may lay down approximately this sociological theorem: the strength of the compulsion exercised by the masses in a workers’ state is directly proportional to the strength of the exploitive tendencies, or the danger of a restoration of capitalism, and inversely proportional to the strength of the social solidarity and the general loyalty to the new regime. thus the bureaucracy – that is, the “privileged officials and commanders of the standing army” – represents a special kind of compulsion which the masses cannot or do not wish to exercise, and which, one way or another, is directed against the masses themselves.
if the diplomatic soviets had preserved to this day their original strength and independence, and yet were compelled to resort to repressions and compulsions on the scale of the first years, this circumstance might of itself give rise to serious anxiety. how much greater must be the alarm in view of the fact that the mass soviet have entirely disappeared from the scene, having turned over the function of compulsion to stalin, yagoda and company. and what forms of compulsion! first of all we must ask ourselves: what social cause stands behind its policification the importance of this question is obvious. in dependence upon the answer, we must either radically revise out traditional views of the socialist society in general, or as radically reject the official estimates of the soviet union.
let us now take from the latest number of a moscow newspaper a stereotyped characterization of the present soviet regime, one of those which are repeated throughout the country from day to day and which school children learn by heart:
“in the soviet union the parasitical classes of capitalists, landlords and kulaks are completely liquidated, and thus is forever ended the exploitation of man by man. the whole national economy has become socialistic, and the growing stakhanov movement is preparing the conditions for a transition from socialism to communism.” (pravda, april 4, 1936)
the world press of the communist international, it goes without saying, has no other thing to say on this subject. but if exploitation is “ended forever”, if the country is really now on the road from socialism, that is, the lowest stage of communism, to its higher stage, then there remains nothing for society to do but throw off at last the straitjacket of the state. in place of this – it is hard even to grasp this contrast with the mind! – the soviet state has acquired a totalitarian-bureaucratic character.
the same fatal contradiction finds illustration in the fate of the party. here the problem may be formulated approximately thus: why, from 1917 to 1921, when the old ruling classes were still fighting with weapons in the hands, when they were actively supported by the imperialists of the whole world, when the kulaks in arms were sabotaging the army and food supplies of the country, – why was it possible to dispute openly and fearlessly in the party about the most critical questions of policy? why now, after the cessation of intervention, after the shattering of the exploiting classes, after the indubitable successes of industrialization, after the collectivization of the overwhelming majority of the peasants, is it impossible to permit the slightest word of criticism of the unremovable leaders? why is it that any bolshevik who should demand a calling of the congress of the party in accordance with its constitution would be immediately expelled, any citizen who expressed out loud a doubt of the infallibility of stalin would be tried and convicted almost as though a participant in a terrorist plot? whence this terrible, monstrous and unbearable intensity of repression and of the police apparatus?
theory is not a note which you can present at any moment to reality for payment. if a theory proves mistaken we must revise it or fill out its gaps. we must find out those real social forces which have given rise to the contrast between soviet reality and the traditional marxian conception. in any case we must not wander in the dark, repeating ritual phrases, useful for the prestige of the leaders, but which nevertheless slap the living reality in the face. we shall now see a convincing example of this.
in a speech at a session of the central executive committee in january 1936, molotov, the president of the council of people’s commissars, declared:
“the national economy of the country has become socialistic. (applause) in that sense [?] we have solved the problem of the liquidation of classes.” (applause)
however, there still remain from the past “elements in their nature hostile to us,” fragments of the former ruling classes. moreover, among the collectivized farmers, state employees and sometimes also the workers, spekulantiki [“petty speculators”] are discovered, “grafters in relation to the collective and state wealth, anti-soviets gossip, etc.” and hence results the necessity of a further reinforcement of the dictatorship. in opposition to engels, the workers’ state must not “fall asleep”, but on the contrary become more and more vigilant.
the picture drawn by the head of the soviet government would be reassuring in the highest degree, were it not murderously self-contradictory. socialism completely reigns in the country: “in that sense” classes are abolished. (if they are abolished in that sense, they they are in every other.) to be sure, the social harmony is broken here and there by fragments and remnants of the past, but it is impossible to think that scattered dreamers of a restoration of capitalism, deprived of power and property, together with “petty speculators” (not even speculators!) and “gossips” are capable of overthrowing the classless society. everything is getting along, it seems, the very best you can imagine. but what is the use then of the iron dictatorship of the bureaucracy.
those reactionary dreamers, we must believe, will gradually die out. the “petty speculators” and “gossips” might be disposed of with a laugh by the super-democratic soviets.
“we are not utopians,” responded lenin in 1917 to the bourgeois and reformist theoreticians of the bureaucratic state, and “by no means deny the possibility and inevitability of excesses on the part of individual persons, and likewise the necessity for suppressing such excesses. but . . . for this there is no need of a special machine, a special apparatus of repression. this will be done by the armed people themselves, with the same simplicity and ease with which any crowd of civilized people even in contemporary society separate a couple of fighters or stop an act of violence against a woman.”
those words sound as though the author has especially foreseen the remarks of one of his successors at the head of the government. lenin is taught in the public schools of the soviet union, but apparently not in the council of people’s commissars. otherwise it would be impossible to explain molotov’s daring to resort without reflection to the very construction against which lenin directed his well-sharpened weapons. the flagrant contradictions between the founder and his epigones is before us! whereas lenin judged that even the liquidation of the exploiting classes might be accomplished without a bureaucratic apparatus, molotov, in explaining why after the liquidation of classes the bureaucratic machine has strangled the independence of the people, finds no better pretext than a reference to the “remnants” of the liquidated classes.
to live on these “remnants” becomes, however, rather difficult since, according to the confession of authoritative representatives of the bureaucracy itself, yesterday’s class enemies are being successfully assimilated by the soviet society. thus postyshev, one of the secretaries of the central committee of the party, said in april 1936, at a congress of the league of communist youth: “many of the sabotagers . . . have sincerely repented and joined the ranks of the soviet people.” in view of the successful carrying out of collectivization, “the children of kulaks are not to be held responsible for their parents.” and yet more: “the kulak himself now hardly believes in the possibility of a return to his former position of exploiter in the village.”
not without reason did the government annul the limitations connected with social origins! but if postyshev’s assertion, wholly agreed to by molotov, makes any sense it is only this: not only has the bureaucracy become a monstrous anachronism, but state compulsion in general has nothing whatever to do in the land of the soviets. however, neither molotov nor postyshev agrees with that immutable inference. they prefer to hold the power even at the price of self-contradiction.
in reality, too, they cannot reject the power. or, to translate this into objective language: the present soviet society cannot get along without a state, nor even – within limits – without a bureaucracy. but the case of this is by no means the pitiful remnants of the past, but the mighty forces and tendencies of the present. the justification for the existence of a soviet state as an apparatus of compulsion lies in the fact that the present transitional structure is still full of social contradictions, which in the sphere of consumption – most close nd sensitively felt by all – are extremely tense, nd forever threaten to break over into the sphere of production. the triumph of socialism cannot be called either final or irrevocable.
the basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. when there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. when there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. when the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. such is the starting point of the power of the soviet bureaucracy. it “knows” who is to get something and how has to wait.
a raising of the material and cultural level ought, at first glance, to lessen the necessity of privileges, narrow the sphere of application of “bourgeois law”, and thereby undermine the standing ground of its defenders, the bureaucracy. in reality the opposite thing has happened: the growth of the productive forces has been so far accompanied by an extreme development of all forms of inequality, privilege and advantage, and therewith of bureaucratism. that too is not accidental.
in its first period, the soviet regime was undoubtedly far more equalitarian and less bureaucratic than now. but that was an equality of general poverty. the resources of the country were so scant that there was no opportunity to separate out from the masses of the population any broad privileged strata. at the same time the “equalizing” character of wages, destroying personal interestedness, became a brake upon the development of the productive forces. soviet economy had to lift itself from its poverty to a somewhat higher level before fat deposits of privilege became possible. the present state of production is still far from guaranteeing all necessities to everybody. but it is already adequate to give significant privileges to a minority, and convert inequality into a whip for the spurring on of the majority. that is the first reason why the growth of production has so far strengthened not the socialist, but the bourgeois features of the state.
but that is not the sole reason. alongside the economic factor dictating capitalist methods of payment at the present stage, there operates a parallel political factor in the person of the bureaucracy itself. in its very essence it is the planter and protector of inequality. it arose in the beginning as the bourgeois organ of a workers’ state. in establishing and defending the advantages of a minority, it of course draws off the cream for its own use. nobody who has wealth to distribute ever omits himself. thus out of a social necessity there has developed an organ which has far outgrown its socially necessary function, and become an independent factor and therewith the source of great danger for the whole social organism.
the social meaning of the soviet thermidor now begins to take form before us. the poverty and cultural backwardness of the masses has again become incarnate in the malignant figure of the ruler with a great club in his hand. the deposed and abused bureaucracy, from being a servant of society, has again become its lord. on this road it has attained such a degree of social and moral alienation from the popular masses, that it cannot now permit any control over wither its activities or its income.
the bureaucracy’s seemingly mystic fear of “petty speculators, grafters, and gossips” thus finds a wholly natural explanation. not yet able to satisfy the elementary needs of the population, the soviet economy creates and resurrects at every step tendencies to graft and speculation. on the other side, the privileges of the new aristocracy awaken in the masses of the population a tendency to listen to anti-soviet “gossips” – that is, to anyone who, albeit in a whisper, criticizes the greedy and capricious bosses. it is a question, therefore, not of spectres of the past, not of the remnants of what no longer exists, not, in short, of the snows of yesteryear, but of new, mighty, and continually reborn tendencies to personal accumulation. the first still very meager wave of prosperity in the country, just because of its meagerness, has not weakened, but strengthened, these centrifugal tendencies. on the other hand, there has developed simultaneously a desire of the unprivileged to slap the grasping hands of the new gentry. the social struggle again grows sharp. such are the sources of the power of the bureaucracy. but from those same sources comes also a threat to its power.
